Life changing: The alkaline diet did not stop TV presenter Tim Lovejoy's brother's cancer - but it helped

Television presenter Tim Lovejoy is visibly bereft when he recalls his brother’s cancer diagnosis – the start of a swift, unstoppable decline that doctors were powerless to prevent.

‘It’s unbelievable, for someone you love to be told they’re not going to live any more,’ says Tim. ‘It’s the most horrific thing anyone could go through. Disbelief takes over. You sit around for hours asking, are the doctors right? I broke down.’

For James, who was just 37, the disease was particularly merciless. Within three months, doctors had given up hope.

‘The tumour just took over,’ says Tim. ‘After a few treatments of chemo the doctors said there was nothing more they could do. They basically just sent him home to die.’

But Tim, angry at the lack of treatment, refused to accept the prognosis. Unable to believe that his brother had little time left, he set about trying to fix James.

The illness had started innocuously – stomach pains that the doctor first dismissed as irritable bowel syndrome. Halfway through 2003, James got married and on his honeymoon the pain became so intense he had to return home, and was referred to a gastroenterologist.

Tim recalls: ‘The specialist said to him, “You’ve got more chance of winning the Lottery than anything major being wrong with you.” Then I got the call from my dad saying they’d found a tumour.’ It was pancreatic cancer.

Tim, now 45, knew nothing about the disease, and how low the chances of survival are. ‘The oncologist said, “We’re going to fight this, we can beat this.” But I now know only a tiny percentage of people live with pancreatic cancer longer than five years.’

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As teenagers, the brothers were polar opposites. Tim was extrovert, a social butterfly and school sports fanatic. James, two years older, loved nothing more than reading and listening to punk bands such as The Clash in his bedroom.

As they grew into men, they drifted apart. James got jobs stock-taking in pubs while Tim pursued a career as a presenter on football magazine show Soccer AM, and then moved on to cookery shows Something For The Weekend and Sunday Brunch.

It was, Tim admits, the illness that brought them back together. He’d visit James’ house regularly and chat about sport to keep his spirits up.

The two brothers, whose lives were once so different, were now locked together again – in a battle against terminal cancer.

So close: Tim Lovejoy, right, with his brother James, who died aged 37, as young boys in their football tracksuits

In the absence of any medical help, Tim discovered there were alternative practitioners all too willing to take on such desperate cases.

He found a holistic therapist who persuaded James to rid his diet of meat and acidic ingredients in favour of juices and alkaline foods.

‘The juices were made from things like broccoli and beetroot – a lot of vegetables.

‘The only things we used to sweeten them with were apples. He couldn’t eat any fried food or anything acidic. He became a vegetarian.’

The rationale for the alkaline diet is that cancer cells thrive in a slightly acidic environment in laboratory conditions, so an alkaline body should be unfriendly to cancer cells.

The diet involves eliminating sugar and all processed foods, dairy and meat and eating lots of raw vegetables, fish and pulses.

TUMOUR THAT IS RARE BUT RELENTLESS

Pancreatic cancer is relatively rare – about 8,000 people are diagnosed with it each year in Britain. But over the past three decades, survival rates have barely increased.

Consultant gastroenterologist Dr Steve Pereira, who is a medical adviser to Pancreatic Cancer UK, says: ‘In most of the other cancers there’s been definite improvements – real gains in public awareness, people looking out for symptoms, screening programmes, drug tests, and a whole host of specifically targeted drugs to compliment chemotherapy.

‘But in pancreatic cancer none of those areas have really resulted in any significant gains for mortality.’

Part of the problem is the difficulty in detecting it early. The pancreas is nestled behind the stomach, between the kidneys and close to the spleen, liver and gall bladder, so a tumour that spreads will likely affect any number of other organs, making surgery difficult if not impossible in many cases.

Worse still, a pancreatic tumour often creates no symptoms, allowing it to grow unnoticed.

A few studies are looking at ways of improving diagnosis in primary care. If, for example, a patient has three of the following: upper abdominal pain, back pain, jaundice or weight loss, they could be automatically referred to a specialist.

James’s mother would prepare a lot of the meals and, to ensure everything was indeed alkaline, put a piece of litmus paper on all his food. But it was rather joyless for James, who mourned the loss of his favourite foods.

Tim remembers: ‘He would say. “I’m not allowed my roast dinners or fish and chips. Is there any point in living?” ’

But James made the changes, bolstered by the holistic specialist’s advice that while these dietary adjustments wouldn’t affect the cancer, it would help him live with it.

‘I helped him do it, but he made the conscious decision,’ Tim says. ‘And his quality of life was so much better once he went alkaline. I remember quite early on he ate a bacon sandwich and felt really sick after it and said, “I’m not doing that again. I don’t feel well.”

Once established on the new regime, James even felt well enough to leave the house. He would go with friends to watch football at Watford FC and occasionally dine out at a vegetarian restaurant.

‘He was able to live his life,’ says Tim. ‘The great thing about doing the diet is, rather than sitting around waiting for other people to do stuff for you, you’re being proactive. It gave my brother the feeling he had more control.’

The impact on James of his diagnosis was profound. He sent for a vicar, despite having no religion, who said God would look after him. James then turned to a spiritualist whose positive approach to the disease helped him feel happier.

‘He wanted to latch on to any glimmer of hope,’ Tim says. ‘He wasn’t ready to die. He became very positive, talking about his future and where he was going to travel to next.’

The rest of the family rallied round as, Tim recalls, James’s wife ‘went through hell’. Tim juggled his visits with looking after his then one-year-old twin daughters Grace and Rose. James moved back in with his parents so he could be given 24-hour care with the help of cancer nurses, whom Tim heaps praises upon.

‘When James was struggling, my parents could speak to them to get painkillers. They could have proper conversations with the nurses about the process of him dying.

‘Everyone has dark thoughts and it’s hard to share those with each other, but you can share those with the nurses because they understand.

‘My brother could tell them how he was feeling. Cancer sufferers don’t want to upset their friends and family and say, “I’m scared of dying.” Those nurses have to take on the role of therapist, doctor, everything. They have to show charm and tact and empathy. They’re real heroes.

‘I can’t tell you how much heartache you go through. The stress on the family is phenomenal.’

Making the most: Tim says his brother James, left, was able to enjoy his last days thanks to the change in the way he ate, following the alkaline diet instead

As autumn 2003 turned into winter, James deteriorated. In December Tim went to see him to find him feeling terrible. The next day, James was taken to hospital.

His parents rang Tim. ‘They said, “Come now. He’s dying.” ’ He rushed to the ward to find James in a coma. ‘As we talked to him you could see he was listening because his heart rate would go up on the monitor when we spoke,’ he says.

‘I witnessed him take his last few breaths. After we said our goodbyes, that’s it, he went.’ To cope with the loss, Tim immersed himself in work.

‘As a family we just carried on. A little while later the reality hit. But the pain I go through is nothing in comparison to my parents.

‘They are strong, but sometimes I see how very sad they are. Christmas is always particularly tough because he died just before then.’

Although the strict diet regime did nothing to slow the progression of the disease that would finally claim James’ life, Tim still advocates the radical alkaline approach. ‘Doing things like eating the right foods definitely helps,’ he says.

‘Not just because James felt better and not because he felt he was being cured but because he believed he was living with cancer the best way possible.’

In reaction to his brother’s death, Tim has tried to maintain the positivity he surrounded James with by doing everything he can to look after his and his children’s health.

‘I always thought I was immortal, that cancer would never happen to our family, so when it did and James died, I realised it could happen to anyone. That made me look at what I do to my body.’

He cut down on alcohol, started eating healthily and still exercises regularly – which is why he has agreed to take part in a swimathon for Marie Curie. He’s also focusing on another positive: the latest addition to his family.

His partner Tamsin Greenway, 30, the professional netball player, gave birth last month.

Tim says: ‘We’ve called the baby Jamie Jeane, after my brother. Tamsin was happy about that.’

To achieve alkaline conditions, the diet dictates that ‘acid-producing’ foods should be avoided. These include starchy grains, red meat, poultry, refined carbohydrates and dairy products. Fizzy drinks, sugar, alcohol and caffeine are banned. Instead people should eat fruit, vegetables, oily fish and most varieties of nuts.

A 2012 research review, published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health, concluded that the key benefits come from its staple healthy-living guidelines: eat more fruit and vegetables, cut out sugar and processed foods, and slash your sodium intake.

The major problem, according to GP Dr Ellie Cannon, is that: ‘You can’t make your body alkaline by eating certain foods.

‘A key function of the kidneys is maintaining pH balance – they change the acidity of the urine in order to keep the blood at a constant neutral pH of 7.4. So all you are really doing is making your urine alkaline.’

However, there are benefits to eating well. ‘Data indicates that a diet high in fruit and vegetables can improve outcomes for cancer patients going through treatment,’ says Prof Stebbing. A 2011 report in the British Journal of Cancer suggests that a low-fat, high-fibre diet may protect against cancer progression and recurrence.

And while the strict regime sounds unpleasant, it can give cancer patients a mental boost.

‘A cancer diagnosis can make people feel they have lost control of their lives,’ says Prof Stebbing. ‘Adopting a new diet or healthy lifestyle helps to restore a sense of control. My patients often want to try a new eating plan and as long as it doesn’t interfere with their treatment, I am happy for them to do whatever they like.’

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The alkaline diet couldn't save my brother from cancer - but I'm glad that I persuaded him to try it, says TIM LOVEJOY